2023-10-29 08:24:47
Sound of Freedom It is an independent production, with a budget of just 14 and a half million (small change for a Hollywood production) and is backed by the reunion of its protagonist, Jim Caviezely Mel Gibson (as executive producer), after Passion of Christ. Considered as the sleeper This 2023, with a collection that exceeds 240 million dollars, the film has also become a title claimed, above all, by the most conservative sector of the audience, for a message that not only denounces child sexual slavery, but rather advocates a certain spirituality and a concept of family. In parallel to the film, other discourses have been generated, on one side and the other, for and against the film, of conspiracy against the release of the film, but also of glorifying a protagonist with many dark points in his to have. Two speeches, in any case, that do not enter into the evaluation of this criticism.
THE CHILDREN OF GOD
Sound of Freedom It is not the first film to denounce child sexual slavery, nor the international trafficking networks that feed pedophiles around the world; but it does seek to become a tool that gives strength to this conversation and promotes the search for solutions to the problem. Its objective is to have an impact on the emotional response of viewers to the story, to move and overwhelm them. To do this, it assumes a mainstream format, structuring its plot as a police thriller, with a staging that uses genre resources to make the story more accessible to the public.
At the billing level, it is a correct film, where we can highlight the photography of Gorka Gómez Andreu (to the blacksmith, Irati) and the music of Javier Navarrete (The Pan’s Labyrinth), a good job of assembly Brian Scofield (collaborator in different sections of Terrence Malick), there is a good casting job. Despite its modest budget, the film has managed to bring together a good technical and artistic team, which has clearly favored the result.
PREACHER
Behind the camera we find the Mexican director Alejandro Monteverde, a filmmaker who has known how to build a filmography with titles with a conservative discourse and an important moral charge, the best example being “Bella”, a 2006 film that emerged as a standard-bearer film for pro-life and anti-abortion discourse. Like “Sound of Freedom,” it was a film with a modest budget, financed by ultra-conservative American organizations and which, thanks to their encouragement, was able to break away from the limitations of distribution of films with such low economic resources.
Comfortable in this circle, Monteverde has assumed his position as director as if he were a preacher. His films are parables with a final moral, an awareness-raising message that makes the film a means to something and not an end in itself. It does not seek intellectual complexity either, but rather a plain and accessible narrative.
DIVINE MANDATE
In this sense, Sound of Freedom It is a film with a broad-stroke discourse, without subtleties, leaving no room for interpretation to the viewer. The message is clear and forceful. The problem is that it is also flat, manichean, without textures. The characters are poorly worked, even the protagonist, who, despite having a solvent actor as Jim Caviezel, it barely rises from a monochrome representation. The rest of the characters are two-dimensional, without richness or dramatic complexity. The dialogues are lapidary, but childish and, at times, ridiculous. In his intention to make a dent in the viewer’s heart with the first shot, he overloads the emotional ink too much, in our opinion, overloading the drama of the situations.
JUDGMENT
As a movie, Sound of Freedom It is a medium-sized film, well made, but with many deficiencies, some deliberate, others due to incompetence. His speech also enters into many contradictions, beyond the fact that we all agree with his defense of childhood and his denunciation of sexual abuse of minors. Its more than 240 million in revenue is proof that the speech reaches its audience, but as a film it seems to us that it barely meets the approval mark.
#SOUND #FREEDOM #Alejandro #Monteverde